You could tell before the doors even opened that it was going to be a tight squeeze. Both Lansdowne shows had sold out, the first so quickly that a second was added, only for that one to disappear too. Aotearoa’s No Cigar have been quietly gathering word-of-mouth momentum that’s now anything but quiet.
Inside, it was shoulder-to-shoulder and pushing 40 degrees. Fog spilling off the stage, walls already sweating. There was that easy camaraderie you get when everyone’s equally stuck and stoked. I clamoured onto the side benches to get a view through the haze. When they walked on, the lighting stayed low, all backlit silhouettes and new-wave haze. The opening production belonged in a much bigger room, pulsating lights raised the stakes. You could only make out outlines of guitars and flashes of movement.
No Cigar’s particular alchemy: indie rock with salt in its hair, guitars that shimmer and bruise in equal measure and melodies that carry an intense melancholy in their bones. Willy Ferrier’s vocals cut through warm but rough-edged, carrying that perfectly imperfect grain – exactly how you want it live. Every song pushed against the venue’s physical limits, bigger than the space could reasonably contain.
The crowd knew almost every word. Song after song, a collective knowing that felt both surprising and inevitable. There’s something so audacious about No Cigar, and it’s like watching someone outgrow their clothes mid-performance. ‘Chantilly‘ came early, the whole front half singing it like muscle memory. They wove newer tracks from ‘Under the Surface‘ between older cuts, the rhythm section laying down architecture while guitars traced atmospheric patterns overhead. Countless pints raised in the air by band and punters alike.
For a fleeting second, No Cigar exists in that beautifully rare space between pub circuit and festival headliner, already carrying themselves like the latter. These small rooms won’t contain them much longer, and I’m begging you to catch them in a hot, sticky carpeted pub room before it’s too late.
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